The invention relates to using firmware.
A typical portable computer has a battery for furnishing power to the computer when AC power is unavailable. When the battery becomes substantially discharged, a user of the computer may not have sufficient time to save data before the complete discharge of the battery and corresponding shut down of the computer.
The portable computer may have firmware to prevent data loss due to power failure, such as a hibernation routine incorporated into a Basic Input/Output System (BIOS). The BIOS is located in a Read Only Memory (ROM) of the computer and contains systems programs for interfacing higher level software, such as an operating system (e.g., MS-DOS), to hardware of the computer. The hibernation routine is executed by a central processing unit (CPU) of the computer when circuitry of the computer detects the battery has become almost discharged. The hibernation routine transfers the contents of a system memory and the states of computer devices, i.e., hibernation data (which would be lost when power is shut down) to a disk drive (where they can survive when power is lost) of the computer before the complete discharge of the battery. When power is restored to the computer, the hibernation routine restores the contents of the system memory and the states of the computer devices that existed prior to the hibernation.
The hibernation routine may store the hibernation data to the disk drive as a file pursuant to a file system (e.g., a file allocation table (FAT) system), or the hibernation routine may store the hibernation data to a reserved hibernation data partition of the disk drive which is not organized in accordance with a particular file system.